When John Lennon wrote Norwegian
Wood in 1965, the song may have alluded to an affair he'd had but
the title reference was very specific. It was to the fashionable
Scandinavian design of the period.
By the mid Sixties furniture and fashion
designers, artists and architects from that broad region north of
central Europe were creating functional and decorative work which was
considered... > Read more

In Sydney's newly renovated Museum of
Contemporary Art (MCA) there is a remarkable portrait of the late Lou
Reed.
It is an enormous piece by the American artist Chuck Close who
is renown for such large-scale “heads”, his preferred term for
his full face, usually front-on portraits.
Those familiar with Close's work know
where this is heading: Lou is one of Close's... > Read more

In the early Sixties just before the
Beatles conquered America through a combination of art, smarts and
image – and shifted the coordinates of popular culture to Britain –
America was the nexus of global pop culture and political life.
The Kennedys, Hollywood, consumerism,
girl groups, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe . . . . The world had been
electrified by Elvis and... > Read more

The
most common defense of intellectually bankrupt or emotionally empty
contemporary art is that it “invites the viewer to ask questions”.
This
is reflexive curator-speak which throws the responsibility back on
the nay-sayer. It is possible for an intelligent, informed observer
to say, “Yeah, but I still don't buy it”.
And
while artists... > Read more

Here's an odd, post-modern idea for an
episode of Doctor Who.
The good doctor finds himself in
London's BBC Radiophonic Music Workshop in 1963 where techno-boffins
are fiddling with primitive electronic equipment. They're creating a
distinctive piece of music to be used for a new television series
called . . . Doctor Who.
And who should also be there but New
Zealand classical... > Read more

It was Mae West who said, “Keep a
diary and perhaps some day it will keep you”.
This presumes you've had an interesting
life, but former Rolling Stone bassist Bill Wyman assiduously kept
diaries so when he wrote his autobiography Stone Alone back in 1990
he had hard facts as well as memories to draw on.
Rock people and Stones fans didn't much
rate the book because it... > Read more

One of the pleasures of being in a
university music department is the chance to put faces and
personalities to people whose music you might have heard but had no
other connection to.
At the University of Auckland's School
of Music it has been interesting for me to do that in the world of
classical music of which I am mostly just an outside observer.
For a short... > Read more

At the launch of this wittily illustrated book this past week, one of the prime movers behind the project Nigel Beckford spoke of the joy of the collaborative process.
At a time when our politics seems so dirty, divisive and confrontational, his comments reminded you that the world is a better place when people pool their talent, work together with a single vision and -- this is important... > Read more

Okay, here's something you could never
have anticipated: Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest
set in a Fifties gay club with songs by Cher . . . in a Motown style.
That triangulation – Wilde, Cher,
Motown – doesn't come together that often.
And did we mention it's an all-male
cast with an all-female five-piece band?
Of course it goes without saying that... > Read more

Rannoch
House, on a leafy and secluded street in a central Auckland suburb,
houses one of New Zealand's most extraordinary art collections.
Open
to the public, the house contains works amassed by – there is no
better description to convey the vast acquisition – the Rich
Lister, arts patron and philanthropist Sir James Wallace.
From
the turret to the basement of this... > Read more

Although no one is quite sure who first
said, “History is written by the winners” (or the variants of
that phrase), it's generally considered to be true.
And it may well have
been for many centuries.
But the world and discourse has
changed, especially since the last half of last century. In the
post-colonial, post-feminist, post-Marxist, post-internet world of... > Read more

When Auckland photographer Robin Morrison died in 1993 at the tragically early age of 48, his legacy was already firmly established.
The son of a portrait photographer (whose work he admitted he was not even curious about as a child), he fell into his career almost by chance. While working for, or at least hanging around the offices of, the underground magazine International Times in London... > Read more

Every month the popular British music
magazine Mojo commissions an artist to do the illustration which
accompanies their lead review. Among the big names whose work has
appeared there have been Barney Bubbles, Bill McConkey, Ian Wright, Savage Pencil . . .
And in January this year, the New
Zealand artist Mark Rutledge from Auckland had one of his
ballpoint-on-kauri works there of... > Read more

Most musicians with any intellectual integrity or curiosity -- unless they happen to be in Status Quo or ZZ Top -- will change direction or style at some point in their career. Maybe - as in the cases of David Bowie, Miles Davis and a few others -- a number of times.
But very few -- not even Bowie when he traded LA and cocaine for Berlin and austerity in the Low/Heroes period -- made such a... > Read more

Among the more crazy things which some serious stoners believed -- and they believe most things -- was that if you cue up Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album with the film The Wizard of Oz there are some weird parallels of music and image which might lead you to think . . .
The question to be asked about this is simple: Who first did that?
(Follow-up question: Why?)
The useful... > Read more

The annual Southside Arts Festival shines the spotlight on the arts, culture and communities of South Auckland where the population is predominantly Polynesian and Maori.
This year's festival which runs from tomorrow (October 17) to November 3 takes place in various venues and features everything from hip-hop and graffiti to art exhibitions, dance and design, drama and "the... > Read more

Although in later life Richard Wagner
may have overstated the importance of The Flying Dutchman – first
staged in 1841 – in the long arc of his career, there is no doubt
it represented something of a breakthrough for him after the more
traditional Rienzi.
Wagner's shift from overt drama to
internal narrative and psychological turmoil certainly gives The
Flying Dutchman a... > Read more

New Zealand's annual APRA Silver Scroll awards, held this year at Vector Arena in Auckland on Tuesday October 15, acknowledge the strength and diversity of New Zealand songwriters, but also include the Sounz award for contemporary classical works (the finalists, with musical examples are here) and the Maioha award for Maori songwriters.
The finalists for the 2013 APRA Maioha Award are . . .... > Read more

In recent years the annual APRA Silver Scroll award night for songwriters has expanded into acknowledging New Zealand finest contemporary classical compositions, and to acknowldge these composers we include their work here.
“SOUNZ is thrilled that APRA provides this opportunity to recognise recent New Zealand compositions and highlight their outstanding levels of creativity and... > Read more

Australian set and costume designer Zoe
Atkinson explodes with laughter, mock horror and a frisson of fear
when I tell her she has just given me my headline.
“No, you can't say that,” she
shrieks.
We'd been talking about how her
seven-year old son hadn't been able to see her very adult previous
production of Richard Strauss' Elektra for the West Australian Opera... > Read more